French chef Alain Ducasse has a phone call as he leaves the Le Meurice hotel in Paris September 4, 2013. In "the prettiest dining room in Paris," hidden behind gilded glass doors at the opulent Le Meurice hotel, Michelin-starred French chef Alain Ducasse is not interested in spectacle. As Ducasse and his head chef, Christophe Saintagne, launch a new menu that eschews over-worked, over-decorated and overly pretentious food, understatement is even the order of the day in the centrepieces - an heirloom tomato set atop a copper mold. In an interview days before the Le Meurice Restaurant's reopening on Monday, the entrepreneur whose empire includes over 20 international restaurants said he wants the cooking, stripped bare of excess and reduced to its essence, to do the wowing in the light, bright dining room that overlooks the famous Tuileries gardens. Picture taken September 4, 2013. REUTERS/Charles Platiau (FRANCE - Tags: FOOD SOCIETY)